


Orders and Werewolves

by ElizaHiggs



Series: Amused, Impressed, Smitten [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Canon Compliant, F/M, First Meetings, Romance, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 04:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6270028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElizaHiggs/pseuds/ElizaHiggs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tonks is a little afraid of werewolves | Tonks POV</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orders and Werewolves

**Author's Note:**

> Most (awesome) fics I've read show Lupin meeting a Tonks who is somehow completely free of the prejudice that affects the rest of the wizarding world (including, if we are to believe Lupin in DH, her own parents). I thought: what if she weren't?  
> \--  
> I own none of these characters

Mad-Eye withholds the details, of course. Tonks expected as much. She knows Mad-Eye better than to expect him to divulge the entirety of the Order's secrets - or roster - until after she's sworn her loyalty to Dumbledore and to any effort to bring about the end of You-Know-Who, Ministry be damned.

Still, it's a bit shocking to be standing on the stoop of number twelve, Grimmauld Place and to be told without warning that, oh, by the way, the Order is harboring both the fugitive Sirius Black and the werewolf Remus Lupin.

And of course, it does make sense, in a way - she knows by now that Kingsley Shacklebolt is also a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and he's the one who's been advising the Ministry that Black is currently hiding in Tibet, and who's been convincing the Auror Department that Lupin is a - er - _harmless_ werewolf, in spite of the near-attack last spring on a group of unsuspecting schoolchildren on the grounds of Hogwarts itself.

As Mad-Eye turns to face the front door and raises his wand, Tonks suppresses an involuntary shiver of revulsion, and Moody's magical eye swivels in her direction. "Alright there, Auror Tonks?" he growls, and she swallows her irrational fear.

Mad-Eye is the last person who would lead her into danger; he fought alongside these men during the first war; Sirius Black is not actually a Death Eater; and -

It's not full moon.

She raises her wand in response. "Yes," she says, and is pleased to hear that her voice is steady.

"Good lass," Moody says, gentler now, and leads them into the House of Black.

Where she promptly overturns an umbrella stand that someone has placed inconsiderately close to the door.

"Shite," she curses loudly, but her voice is drowned by a sudden screeching from a portrait in the entrance way: " _MUDBLOODS! TRAITORS! FILTH IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE, BESMIRCHING THE NAME OF BLACK - "_

"ENOUGH!" roars a male voice, as its issuer bounds into the hall and forces the curtains back over the portrait, which falls silent.

Tonks, who has paused righting the umbrella stand, looks up into the man's face.

"Hello, little cousin," he says, sweeping his hair back from his gaunt face. He smiles tentatively, and she remembers her handsome cousin, who had occasionally come to stay with her family when she was small, who gave her rides on his flying motorbike, and she blinks back tears as fear dissolves and the childhood memories momentarily overtake her.

"As graceful as ever, I see," he teases, and smiles more broadly now, and she laughs and flies into his arms.

"Alright, alright," Mad-Eye urges impatiently, "the family reunion can continue in the kitchen."

"Are you living here, then?" she asks Sirius as he leads them into the bright kitchen.

"What?" he responds distractedly, looking around the empty room.

No sign of the werewolf, then, she thinks.  _Lupin,_ she reminds herself furiously. He has a goddamn name.

"Oh," Sirius says as her question reaches him, "Yeah. Me and Moony. My parents' old place, you know, perfect for Headquarters. Unplottable and all that."

"Moony," she repeats.

"Remus Lupin," Mad-Eye explains for Sirius. "I thought he would be here."

"He was..." Sirius shrugs and moves to heat up a kettle of water. "He probably went upstairs to read." He nods at the kettle. "Sound of tea'll usually draw him out of hiding."

She and Moody seat themselves at the long kitchen table, and Tonks plays with the hem of the tablecloth to relieve her nervousness. A werewolf who enjoys books and tea. Like any other British professor, really.

Sure enough, the sound of the whistling kettle draws a third man into the room, and her stomach flips over involuntarily at the sight of him, with a fear she's now annoyed she cannot seem to kill.

Everything about his presence gives off an aura of mild-manneredness: from the light brown hair, streaked with grey, that tumbles unassumingly over the threadbare collar of his robes; to his hands, which are stuffed into the pockets of his trousers in an inherently non-threatening stance; to his expression, which is clearly in search of tea but open enough when he sees they have new guests.

She relaxes. A bit.

"Ah, Lupin," Moody says, and stands, and Tonks follows suit. "This is Auror Tonks, our newest recruit. Tonks, Remus Lupin."

He nods pleasantly in her direction at the same moment she sticks out her right hand to shake his, but his hands stay in his pockets, and it takes her an awkward second to realize that he's not used to people touching him voluntarily, at least, not people who already know what he is. He's used to giving people space.

But he's also good at reading people, and socially fluid, and he chuckles apologetically to cover her embarrassment and grasps her hand in his own, and for some reason she's very aware of how warm and dry his hand is.

Because her senses are heightened, she supposes.

"Just Tonks, then?" Lupin inquires in a friendly tone, and Sirius snickers.

"Now Nymphadora," Sirius says, teasing again, and her ears prickle in annoyance. "Don't tell me you're ashamed to have a name befitting the noble house of Black."

" _Don't_ call me Nymphadora, Sirius," she says in what she hopes is her most threatening auror voice.

"You're related?" Lupin says with some surprise, hands back in his pockets, looking from Sirius to Tonks with mild-mannered interest.

"My little cousin, once removed," Sirius responds with an obvious pride that makes Tonks's insides squirm happily. "Andromeda Tonks, nee Black's, daughter."  He pauses and considers her a moment. "You know, when you were small, I called you Nym," he suggests innocently, and she draws her wand in response, but it's a mock threat and her lips are already twitching.

"I'm an auror, not a child, Black," she reminds him, "and until yesterday I was under orders to stun you on sight." Sirius laughs, and she turns her attention back to Lupin.

"Just Tonks," she confirms, matching his friendly tone and stowing her wand.

Lupin nods again politely, but his eyes crinkle at the corners and she realizes that he is silently laughing at her, and suddenly she feels less like an auror and more like a child.

x

When the meeting begins, she examines the group of Order members gathered in the kitchen: Shacklebolt, McGonagall, the Weasleys - she knows Arthur vaguely from work, and of course she went to school with Bill - Emmaline Vance, and a few others she cannot name. The only presence that surprises her is Snape, she  _knows_ he was a Death Eater, she's read the old trial records - but then it clicks that when Dumbledore had said  _turned spy for us_ he'd meant  _turned spy for the Order of the Phoenix._

At least it explained why Dumbledore had allowed an ex-Death Eater to torture the Potions students at Hogwarts. Sort of.

Her attention drifts back to Lupin. He's young, she knows, Sirius's age, and he has a good-looking, open face, but he certainly looks like he's been through his thirty-odd years of transformations: hair greyed and face lined, and, from what she can see of his forearms extending from his rolled back sleeves, heavily scarred.

He catches her staring and smiles again, that amused, half-smile that's almost a smirk, but the amusement reaches his eyes, which are warm.

She wonders what it sounds like when he laughs aloud.

And then she's aware that someone is saying her name. "Sorry?" she looks up, and realizes that Dumbledore is smiling patiently at her. Fuck.

"I said welcome, Ms Tonks," he repeats. "Kingsley and Alastor have spoken most highly of you, and we are very pleased to have you join our number."

"Of course," she says, and looks around in gratitude at the smiling faces surrounding her - well, everyone except Snape, who she is fairly certain never smiles, and Lupin, who is politely attempting to cover another smirk, and Sirius, who is making no such effort and smirking openly.

After the meeting concludes, and Snape and Dumbledore take off, Molly takes a headcount of who is staying for dinner. Lupin and Sirius stand up to help her, and Tonks follows their lead.

Or tries to. She attempts to back away from the table quicker than the weight of her chair will allow, and suddenly she is in danger of careening inelegantly towards the ground.

But her momentum is arrested, and she looks up and realizes Lupin has caught her elbow, steadying her, one hand at her arm and the other lightly on her back, and this time he does laugh aloud, and the low, throaty sound makes her stomach flip over again, but this time it doesn't feel like fear.


End file.
